Dreaming of Snakes and baby Elephants

I have this very clear image in my head of the outline of a hat. The hat is the outline of the boa constrictor, inside the book “The Little Prince”. Inside the hat, the stomach of the boa constrictor, is an elephant. It always amazed me that something so thin and long could consume something so large and round. I had a dream the other night about a baby elephant in an area surrounded by snakes. Throughout the dream I was sure the elephant would protect me from all these snakes, but none of them were dying, and the elephant was playing, and disappearing. I would look on the ground and there would be these tiny figures of elephants, made of petrified wood, or dried shit. The snakes were everywhere; hanging from the trees, running through the surface of the water, on the ground, and I would leap to avoid them biting me, killing me. I could see them all so clearly. I’m not sure if it was a lucid dream, but I realized when I was crossing the water to avoid the largest snakes, that I could leap over this space, stay in the air long enough to hit the edge of the other side. Snakes terrify me.

I have had an elephant fascination since I was little. My mother used to tell me to dream of them before I went to bed; dream of them pink and blue and fluffy, floating on clouds. I read a story a long time ago, a news story, that the orphaned babies require touching teams for the first six months of their life. They need to bond, if they don’t have constant touch they will die. I related to the lack of touch, and feeling like I would disappear into some hole in the world if no one touched me. I didn’t want people to, it felt awkward. I’m better about it now, I’m pretty huggy actually.

When I was in Grand Forks last month, I went in to a shop that had all kinds of things in it, but mostly stones and crystals. I used to really like going in to these kinds of stores. I’m not sure how much I believed in any healing power, but I was willing to try. Anyway, I was holding a bunch of different stones and crystals, some felt better than others. The owner of the shop and I were talking. He said he didn’t know much about what they did, he just knew what he liked. He eventually showed me this one piece he hadn’t put out. He thought I should see it. When he handed it to me I felt like I was in the “Lord of the Rings”. Not sure if I was Frodo or Smeagol, at that moment I felt like Frodo, but more excited. I was being handed the power sword. A serpentine wand from Peru. Slightly bigger and thicker than my middle finger. It was green and black, and carved in the shaped of a wand. A sharp point on the end. The night before the dream I took the point and I circled it around my right eye, and my right cheekbone. The right side of my head gives me alot of trouble. I heard once, along time ago that we process trauma through our right eye. I think it goes everywhere personally. When I get triggered, sometimes my right eye feels like it’s freezing. The last four months, the whole right side of my head has felt so heavy and irritated. My friend in Grand Forks said the right eye is connected to the liver in Chinese Medicine, and emotionally, to anger.

I always identified with Elephants. I have percieved them as gentle giants, so sensitive, protective, loyal, filled with memories, fearless, and terrified of the smallest things. Snakes are menacing, lethal. They also represent transformation, fertility, good things. In the dream, I don’t think I was that afraid of them. I had to save myself, the Elephants clearly weren’t able to help me. The snakes are still in my head, the long ones particullarly, just under the surface of the water, and so green. Now I feel like Harry Potter, my eye is starting to hurt.

Why… weirds me out

Generally I’m not a writing snob. My grammar and punctuation are horrible, as anyone can tell by reading my blog. I do have some peeves though. First is the excessive use of…I’ve been getting e-mail from some people who do this… constantly. It’s like their drooling, or sighing like a teenager full of melancholy. I hate it. I think it’s supposed to look poetic, but it just looks like fill in the blanks. I see the place for it, but it’s often only one place, not ten. Also, shortening really bugs me. LOL, OMG, WTF, and when people say Docs. It seems like another sign of our laziness. I never liked shortening people’s names either, unless I met them when it was already shortened, like my friend Kate, who is Kathleen. Although I don’t think I would say laugh out loud, I would say oh my god and what the fuck. The long versions though. That’s it, until I find something equally useless and snarky to bitch about.

What a difference a day makes

Or what a difference an acupuncture treatment with hot stones and moxibustion makes. I had an amazing treatment yesterday. I felt so relaxed, deeply relaxed. I felt less angry, less sad, soft and lighter. My computer crashed yesterday, and I just couldn’t get too freaked out, that was before the treatment, so maybe I was just ready to feel different. I got reminded that all my perogy eating right now is comfort and I need alot of comfort right now. So last night on my way back from acupuncture, I wandered through downtown, and it looked pretty. I went to the mac store to set up an appointment to get my computer fixed, got a bunch of smelly stuff for the bath and a face mask at Lush. Lightning was filling the sky and I made it back just in time. I had a bath, made more perogies, had a face mask, and watched episodes of Ugly Betty on youtube. My mom called, and she told me she feels like fighting for herself. I felt lighter when she said it, and skeptical with a bit of curiousity as to how she may change through all this. Maybe she’ll tap in to something in herself she didn’t know she had. Yesterday reminded me that change is often subtle, and slow. It takes a while to work into your system because there are so many forces fighting it. I don’t want to go back to how I was. I can’t. It always feels like death, changing. I guess because you lose parts of yourself. You lose people, or you lose how you were with them and the awkward kind of comfort it had. I really want to be better for myself and more genuine with the people in my life, and the people who will come in to my life. Sometimes I write things and I either don’t believe myself or something doesn’t feel right about it, but it often ends up in here anyway. Me wanting to be better for myself and others is one of those lines. I have such a distorted vision of myself, probably because I spend so much time in my head. I could already be who I think I should be and not even know it.

Grief

I am sinking. Eating too much, but nothing tastes good. Crying everyday. I move from angry to sad, to helpless all day long. I don’t know when It’s going to change. I am lost, and trapped. My brother was just here for his guilt visit. He’s only had one. The one that involves seeing our mother before she dies of cancer. She could be around for years, he may have to do more than 48 hours of barely making eye contact, and bringing his 4year old boy as a way to avoid talking. It was so awkward. I have had complete strangers treat me better. He is like a brick, not mean, not anything. I don’t want to buy the excuse that he can’t talk about it because he’s a man. I think men get away with not communicating, just like women get away with being passive, apparently it’s not in our nature, which is such shit on both counts.

I keep saying to myself, and others have said to me, this will change. It will get better. It feels very far away, better. I cried so hard last night I could hardly breathe. I am losing my mom, and I have lost someone who I love, not died, but it feels like it. I think of him during the day, I dream of him at night. I smell him. I don’t want to let him go. I have to let him go. Or I have to let something go. I’m just overwhelmed with loss. My home, my identity in the community I was a part of for 16 years. I am losing my mother and my family, who I lost along time ago, but more accutley felt at the moment when they are most needed. My best friend, someone I have been a little in love with since the day I met him 14 years ago; and another good friend who has been like family, who hooked up with someone and moved to relationship land, where old needy friends like me get an awkward lunch once every couple of months. I don’t really talk to many people and I don’t hear from very many people. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either right now. Everything breaking down, means making space right? For something more real, greater, more authentic. I know the therapy, new age lingo about what this time could mean for me. Transformation, shedding skins, becoming more of myself. I also know that I am in pain, in all kinds of ways everyday,transforming hurts.

Snotty cows and the comfort of drug stores

I am a sad girl right now. Lots of reasons. I’m in the library downtown. Not feeling inspired or communicative enough to go downstairs to the Media Democracy Day event, and it seems like the same old, same old, and I’m sick of conferences anyway. We can’t get past fighting ourselves or each other to challenge anyone or anything else substanially. There is a snotty cow stroking her ponytail two desks away from mine. It must be a curse to have a face like that. Pretty and snotty. What am I saying, I can do it too, anyone can do snotty, but some peoples faces are better equipped for it. It makes me feel better to mock others. Sad, but true.

The other thing that gives me comfort when I am sad is going to the drug store. I noticed it last night when I walked through the automatic doors into Shopper’s Drug Mart. I’ve been doing it for years, wasting away hours in the drug store. Looking at all the hand and face creams, magazines, blenders, vitamins and the different kinds of chocolate. It’s so calm in there, and you can get almost everything you need. I prefer London Drugs, more options and they carry more of what I need like blank dvd’s and tapes. I guess it’s the grown up version of my teenage mall escapes. It is disturbing though, a little. Mostly I don’t care. Whatever works right now. Swimming, reading, mocking people, crying, watching crap TV, and the rare decent show, and writing.

Reading a book I was supposed to read when I was 13

I have been reading ‘The Diary of Anne Frank”. Thought I would cheer myself up. I have never read it, not terribly good jewish girl of me, but I’m not. I found a hard cover copy in the thrift store in Grand Forks. I can see why so many people have identified with her. She doubts herself, as do most thirteen year olds and average humans, but she is also funny, a bit goofy, old-soul smart, occasionally annoying, but very lovable and so brave. I wish I had the drive to write when I was young, when secrets were killing me and my family, a book of my own, where I could say everything. I have it now, her name is Hanna. I am only on page 65 and we all know how it ends, even without reading it. She left the world a great gift. I know it’s probably a very tired cliche, jewish girls wanting to be like Anne, any girls or boys wanting to be like Anne. I aspire to be like anyone who is brave, funny, loving, wise and smart. Sometimes, but not at the moment, I can be.

Love

It’s morning. I’m stting in the 24 hr coffee shop with free wireless around the corner from my mom’s. I couldn’t sleep anymore. I am buzzing, not from coffee because I don’t drink it. I keep wondering when I’m going to get serious. I say I’m here, here in the city because my mom is sick. I’m staying with her because she is sick. Is it true? Doesn’t feel true. Feels like a safe nice answer. I am staying with my sick mother. I want to be close to her in case she needs something, and because I want to be close to her. She is mostly fine, and she may be fine for a long time. Nobody knows.

I screened my film last night. Got some good feedback and some unwanted from some old guy trying to shove a card in my face telling me how many “ums” I said while I was speaking and that he could help me with that. I didn’t care. I don’t care what they think of it. It initally felt important to show it last night, at Carnegie. I thought it would be this emotional thing, but it wasn’t. I didn’t feel it. I felt it after. I felt the affection from people I see on the street. I felt the lonliness sitting in another coffee place having tea, and wishing I could go see somebody that doesn’t want to see me. Wishing we had healed what needs to be healed, and he would hold me. I know it can’t go back to how it was. Our old dynamic needs to die. It is so hard though. I think of him everyday, throughout the day. I woke up this morning trying to squeeze him out of my head. It is less than it was, but I still get flashes through the day, particullarly around sunshine. My best memories, best of my life have been with him, when the sun was shining. I’m hanging on, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if there will be anymore amazing days with this person, or if that’s it. We had our quota and now I let go, because we have this shitty dynamic that is painful for both of us. I let go and meet other people I will have great memories of, and other kinds of, and potentially the same kind of shitty dynamic, but I hope for the courage, patience and the willingness from myself and these unknown other people to work through them. I hope for that now with him too. Partially true. Part of me is tired, and feels done, is angry with myself for falling into these dynamics, still caught up in old trauma, and letting it guide my behavior. I know. I need to go easy on myself, but I always wonder why. If I don’t push me who will, and honestly I wouldn’t hear it from anyone else. I am not serious. I act like I’m serious. Like I listen, but I don’t really. I don’t let it in. I don’t feel like I really hear people. I act like I hear people. I find it hard to take them in. I’m not as brave as I play, or as open. I’m not that interested in other people, not deeply anyway. I would like to be.

I stayed with my friend and her husband this past week. They have both been through so much in their lives, and they together as a couple, They are living in this beautiful place high above Grand Forks. They seem even happier, as individuals and as a couple. They have committed to each other to work it out, and when they need do their own thing, they can, and are supportive of each other. She is taking off for a while to go study and he will stay where he is happy, up in the mountains in their beautiful home, off the grid, playing his guitar, being active in his community, while she is studying to become an even better herbalist than she already is. They are not perfect, but they are pretty happy, and are living in a way that feels right to them. Low impact on the earth and greater impact on each other and their community. That is what I want.